especially now he is a clergyman, he will not have anything to do with him."

"Ay, ay!" said Lionel," that is a reason good for something. I only should like to do the same, except that if I was Walter I would have done more long ago, instead of just keeping out of the way, and told Caroline it was a regular shame, and she ought not to be taken in with his fine speeches, and balls, and stuff.” "I don't know” said Marian.

"What don't you know?"

"How far even Walter would be authorized to interfere about what Mr. and Mrs. Lyddell approve."

"Don't talk nonsense, Marian. If a thing is right it is right, if it is wrong, it's wrong, and all the world ought to try to prevent it. I know I would, if anybody would mind me, for it makes me sick to see that man come into the room, and the fuss mamma makes with him. I think he grows worse. I declare I'd as soon see her marry Julian the Apostate! I am so glad he is gone to those races. I should like to ask Caroline what sort of happiness she expects with a man that talks of the Bible as if it was no better than the Iliad! I only wish he would talk so to her, perhaps that would shock her."

"I don't think she is very happy," said Marian.

"I am sure she ought not to be," was the answer.

"The more there has been talk of fixing the day the more unhappy she has looked," said Marian. "You know she has begged the Faulkners to let it be put off a little longer, because she could not bear that it should be while you are in this doubtful state."

"I did not know it," said Lionel, "and much good does it do me! A nice life I shall have with no one but Clara to speak to! And when is your marriage, Marian? Mr. Arundel's, I mean, for that is as bad."

"O that will not be till next summer," said Marian; "Mrs. Wortley wishes Agnes to be twenty-one first, and Edmund has to build a house."

وو

And Marian was ready to forgive them for the delay when she saw how glad it made Lionel look. Yes, rejoiced as she must be to escape from Oakworthy, she could not go without a chequered feeling. If she was adroit at managing people, she would make Clara take the place she held now with Lionel, which would be good for both, but she was far too clumsy for that; and O! what a refuge Fern Torr would be after all this harassing life! It would be better for Lionel not to have her to divert his confidence from his own family, and at any rate she should be there to help him through this sad autumn of uncertainty. Then would come the peace, rest, and guidance she had longed for all her life, in her own home, and that hope might well cheer her through life.

THE RUINS OF SARDIS.

THE Asphodel is glancing beside the lonely lake,
Glancing in silent sunshine from many a sedgy brake;
Where marble columns once arose, this lily fair of day,
In pallid loveliness survives, 'mid ruin and decay.

Vast heaps and creeping weeds where the ancient temples stood,
Where countless thousands sleep beneath the matted underwood;
The breezes sighing o'er the plain from snow-crowned classic hill,
And bosky glades at broad noon-day, void, tenantless, and still.

With desolation round, where destruction's hand had been,
Wild, thronging thoughts of bygone days re-peopled all the scene,
Imagination reigned supreme in that dim, dreamlike hour,
Cybele's gorgeous temple shone in heathen pomp and power.

And Lydia's princes thronged the fane,-her wise and mighty men ;
They gazed upon the distant hills, snow-covered now, as then;
They gazed, too, on the lovely scene with contemplative eyes,
The smooth Gygæan lake reflecting blue, unruffled skies.

Alone among the mighty dead, to other worlds I sought,

These thousands lived as now I live-loved, sorrowed, sighed, and thought;
And on the grand sepulchral mounds I knelt in solemn prayer
Before God's throne: ye ancient dead, we meet together there.

C. A. M. W.

SELFISHNESS; OR, SEED TIME AND HARVEST.

CHAPTER III.

THE gay season was now over at Cheltenham, and Mrs. Sydenham was quite fatigued with her laborious pursuit of amusement, and anticipated with great pleasure leaving her friends to themselves for a time, and looking on new prospects. She had engaged to visit the Isledons at Littworth, and had arranged that her children should accompany her. Her usual plan was to leave them at home when she went away for the change which the languor produced by her sort of life required, for she said such young children were disagreeable to strangers and very fatiguing to herself, and that Trick ford always took care they came to no harm during her absence. This was true, if coming to no harm meant that their health was tolerably well looked after, and that no limb was broken or finger deeply cut, but a discriminating and thoughtful person might have seen a growth of moral harm gathering strength in such unguarded times.

Stanley Isledon was the second son of a gentleman of good family in Leicestershire, one which had always been remarkable for its fidelity to the Church. His father had died while he was a

child, and his education had been conducted by his mother, a woman of strong mind and sincere and unpretending piety. If she had lived much in the world instead of in the retirement of a rural village, her plan of education would have been criticised, and by the majority its severity would have been condemned. She was strict in her rules, but then they were reasonable and just, and she was gentle in their enforcement. Some would have prophesied that she would forfeit her child's affection by discouraging amusement. But such would have been mistaken. The mind she was developing learnt that this is not a holiday world; that talent and station are not bestowed by partial distribution, but given to some to alleviate the necessities of others, and that to them is assigned the work of soothing the sorrows of those on whom Fortune has not deigned to smile. Stanley passed unscathed through the university. Its dissipation had no temptation to one who from infancy had been taught a horror of evil, and whose spirit had drunk in its deepest joy from elevating studies. It had always been his mother's silent wish that he should enter the Church, and she was gratified to observe in him a long-cherished inclination to do so.

He became rector of Littworth and married Agatha Danvers, Mr. Sydenham's cousin. Mrs. Sydenham and other friends regretted the union, as below what Agatha might have expected, yet their zeal in her cause was here quite mistaken, and it is probable that few of them enjoyed through life so happy a home.

"Littworth is a very retired place," said Mrs. Sydenham as she passed among hills and vales, and at last espied the old Gothic parsonage with its bank of wood, and its graceful Church close by, separated from the smooth lawn by evergreens. "I wonder whether they have any neighbourhood;" and when she was seated in the drawing-room she put the question to Isledon.

"O yes," was the reply, "we have about seven hundred parishioners."

"I mean people you are interested in, those you can visit." "We are interested in all these, and hope daily to feel more interest in them; they all require visiting."

"I suppose this takes up all your time, does it not?" and she pitied Agatha in her heart; but she resumed, "the country is very beautiful, I shall walk out to-morrow and see the garden and view. You must show me the place to-morrow, Stanley."

"That I will do with pleasure; will you walk at about one o'clock, as I fear I shall not be able to command my time before."

"O yes, that will do very well-but what can you have to do?" "We go to Church at eight, and to school at nine, and when we return I read with Hanworth, who is going to take Orders, and Agatha is engaged with the children."

To Mrs. Sydenham's ear this account sounded perfectly mo nastic, she was slightly irritated that any one should think a life so unlike her own necessary, and she said, quietly and coldly, "O I beg your pardon, I had no idea you were so much engaged. I will walk out after breakfast with the children and just look round." But the kindness and simplicity of his manner stilled this little rising breeze, and having amused herself during the morning with the last novel which had created a sensation, and which she ordered Trickford to put in, as she supposed she should “want amusement, and have plenty of time for reading," she presented herself equipped for a walk at the luncheon-table, and while Mrs. Isledon waited with the children she took her stroll with Stanley.

It was a delicious day in August, and the scene presented a highly finished picture, in which every part seemed touched and retouched by a delicate hand.

"The best view of the place is from Molestone Hill,” said Stanley, and thither they accordingly walked, and soon reached the spot, and turned to gaze on the calm scene.

“What is that old-fashioned building near the Church? it looks very nice, and seems to bear a sort of family resemblance to your house and the Church; it is like a little daughter to them.”

"It is the school built by my mother,” he said—but no more, for she had died quite recently.

"This is a lovely little place, but you want a drawing-room; if you were to throw out a drawing-room, you would make it delightful !"

Stanley was looking at that moment at the east window of his Church, and luxuriating, as he often did, in a contemplation of its remarkably elegant shape; it possessed the enduring charm which is the property of beauty, and which, in architecture, attracts the eye again and again, by its never-failing magic, to the same object; and he did not hear Mrs. Sydenham's last observation, he was subject to absence of mind, which, had he moved in the society she did, would have been very inconvenient; but those about him were used quietly to wait his own time for their

answer.

"Would it not be an improvement?" she said.

“Yes,” he replied, “and I mean to take off the plaster, and put in a painted window."

"A painted window !" thought Mrs. Sydenham; "it is not the fashion! I should not put a painted window; it would be an expense you might spare yourself," she said.

"I always intended to do it, in memory of my motheran obituary window, you know."

Mrs. Sydenham had never taken the trouble to inquire what an obituary window might be, and she could not conceive what

the memory of his mother could have to do with the new drawingroom, for which her affection for Agatha had induced her to plead. She looked into his face and discovered that his mind, as well' as his eye, were intent on the Church, and she resolved to talk about the improvements she should advise at another opportunity.

THE NIGHT-WATCH.

SILENCE reigned in the chamber of sickness; a silence deep and solemn, interrupted only by the ticking of the clock within, and the loud howl or deep low moan of the wintry wind without. A soul within those lonely walls was soon to wing its way to another world. There lay upon a homely couch, in a clean, but barely furnished apartment, one who, through much tribulation, was about to enter heaven; one who had taken up his cross in early life, and who for so doing had been forced, amidst bitter taunts and words of scorn, to leave his father's house and his native land. The youth had undergone fiery trials, and now that reward was nigh which he had long beheld faintly glimmering in the distance, and which had sustained his drooping spirits, and cheered him on his solitary course; for "there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."

Strange and wonderful ideas passed through the mind of a solitary attendant, who, habited in the plain and simple garb assumed by the Protestant Sisters of Mercy, watched her patient with anxious and attentive eye. She could tell, from oft-repeated experience, that the hour of departure was not far distant. He had been but a few days previously confided to her care; his fever had raged, and she knew not whether the young soldier was a sworn soldier of the Cross, or whether, in the march of life, he had made preparation for a final struggle on the battle field of death. Pity swelled her soul, and she shed tears for the mother who would soon bemoan the loss of a son; and she wept for the sister, whose fond, clinging heart she feared would well-nigh burst, when she heard of the death of a brother on whom, perhaps, her deepest and purest affections were centred. Then her mind wandered amidst different scenes; and as the winds blew now with lusty, threatening roar, and now with mournful, plaintive moan, she pictured the peril of the mariner; listened in imagination to the cry of anguish uttered by the child of poverty; heard, as it were, the wail of one suffering from the pangs of intense and unmitigated cold; then new-born babes and dying saints, thrones for the outcast, crowns